View Single Post
  #100  
Old May 24th 04, 07:54 PM
Q.G. de Bakker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default MF future? ideal cameras?

Bob Monaghan wrote:

the key point y'all missed is that it looks unlikely that a 35mm format
64MP sensor is likely, based on CMOS developer Carver Mead's comments at
end of article fundamental size limits in wavelength of light see
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0009/00...foveon16mp.asp


Carver Mead is enjoying great visionary succes lately, isn't he?

It was deemed very unlikely that people would ever fly. Or that anybody
would ever need more than 512 kB of memory. Or that "still-video" would ever
replace film. Or...
;-)

Anyway, perhaps sensors must grow to be able to produce more pixels.
But unless that will happen tomorrow, it will be too late to help keep MF
alive today.
So those 4x4 cm 64MP sensors will have to be put into something which will
look stunningly like a 35 mm format SLR camera of old (have you ever
compared the sizes of a Nikon F5 and a Mamiya 645? ;-)), or perhaps one of
those "bridge" cameras produced in the late 70s.
Not in a MF digiback, since there will not be a MF camera left to put that
on.

The above is perhaps a bit "over the top", but there's nothing wrong with
the realism of notion it is expressing.
We will not need MF cameras. They will simply put another housing (perhaps
even a telephone ;-)) around that chip. Put a lens mount on it, a display on
the back, and Bob's your uncle.

[...] popular than the more pricey 16MP digital backs for MF. If 16MP

offered a
serious advantage over 8 MP or 11 MP for digital users, then I would
expect to see a lot more digital back users with 16MP backs. And we don't.


But not (!) because there is no advantage. Only because we are expected to
pay far too much for it. The things as the are today are way out of
proprotion. That's why the lower end will win. That's why the lower end will
bring in the revenue that will help the lower end to gain even more of an
advantage over the upper end by becoming more and more like the upper end
while at the same time holding on to its competitive edge (disproportionally
low price), which will increase the low end's winning potential no end. Etc.

The only thing to break this spiral would be a rather huge correction of the
high end's prices.
If that will not happen, the current MF and LF oriented high end will simply
cease to be.

I guess we fundamentally disagree. I do believe there will definitely not be
a place for MF in the future unless they start carving it out today.
Relying on present technology's shortcomings to ensure a MF future is the
most foolish thing MF industry (both camera- and digital back manufacturers)
can do. It would indeed be so stupid that not even shouting at the top of
your voice could put enough stress on that simple fact.

In the above article, National Semiconductor figures they can make 16MP
chips for "disposable" digital cameras as cheaply as today's disposable
film cameras (actually recycled), i.e., under $10 or so each 16MP CMOS
sensor chip. The problem is that a 64MP chip at today's volumes will still
cost $10,000, not $40 ;-)


They also though the D-Finity was a break-through product. And that with
their invention of a three layer chip, noone would want to buy those crappy
Canons and Nikons anymore.
;-)